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Chapter Seventeen: Smelling the sad truth about fiancé Howard

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THAT WRITING SESSION was just what I had needed to properly clear my head. And all it took was about 40 minutes of writing for me to be able to sort out what I should do next.

It was simple, actually, and something I should have thought of. But as often happens, I was too absorbed in the moment to step back and think it out.

So when I allowed myself to slide into the role of composing fiction on my Bronte novel, it clicked

I really needed to get to Howard’s place of work.

At 1:20 p.m., I stood alone in Howard Clark’s large corner office on the sixty-second story of the building near the corner of West 23rd and Broadway.

The building was owned by Riley-Schmidt Incorporated, one of the largest real-estate developers in New York City. Howard Clark was their Corporate Finance Officer responsible for overseeing Manhattan area projects.

A quick post-writing Google search had provided me with enough information about Gail’s fiancé to lead me here. It had been enough to know his full name and his career to be able to narrow down his search to the correct person.

Beyond that, I had relied on a series of lies and charms using biological cues to get into the building past the main reception area. Once on the proper floor for Howard’s office, I knew my next step would be to trick Howard’s personal assistant into vacating her desk long enough for me to gain access to his office behind her.

As I was approaching Howard’s assistant, a curly haired blonde in her mid-twenties, I could detect soft jazz music coming from a speaker on her desk. It was obvious by the sound that it wasn’t a radio broadcast, but rather a CD she was listening to.

“It’s funny you should be playing that album at this moment,” I said.

Her heartbeat raced and her bright blue eyes sparkled as she perked up in her seat as if she’d been given a small shock to the buttocks. “Michelle Amato?” She was eager to discuss this musician, and I didn’t need to hear her heartbeat or detect the subtle shift in her scent due to minor race of adrenaline in her system, because she gave just as many cues verbally. “I just love her music. Isn’t she the best? But why is it funny that I’m playing her album?”

My next statement was a complete guess, of course. I had no idea if this musician would likely ever be in New York nor even if she was still alive. As I stepped up to the desk, I spotted the CD case on a pile of papers to her left.

“I could have sworn that I saw her in this building just a few minutes ago.”

Her heart did the equivalent of a backflip. “Really?”

“Yeah. There’s no mistaking that one of a kind smile and those streaks of blonde in her hair. It’s as distinctive as her sweet voice.”

She was on her feet.

“Where?”

“In the food court, actually.”

“The one on the lower concourse?”

I had no idea where that was but assumed it was 63 floors down. “Yeah. She was at a table across from the Starbucks.” Again, it was another guess; but really, more plausible from a coffee chain that was as common as traffic jams in this city.

She quickly hit a combination of keys on the telephone, tapped several keys on her computer keyboard.

“This I can’t miss. It’s time for my break anyway.”

And she was off.

I didn’t move or say anything as she rushed down the aisle toward the elevator. I waited until the elevator doors closed before I walked past her desk and to Howard’s office.

Even if I couldn’t have tracked my way to Howard’s office by following the increasingly strong scent of Old Spice lingering in the air, his name was on the door in large black letters engraved onto a gold name plate.

By applying just the right pressure to break the lock, I was inside within seconds. I could tell by listening to the heartbeats of the two other people visible in their nearby cubicles that they hadn’t even noticed. One of them was intently entering data with a rabid clacking of keystrokes, while the other was staring just as intently at a YouTube video on his monitor.

Standing inside, absorbing the more powerful, lingering scent of Old Spice in this office, I picked up a few other odors – no less than twelve distinct scents.

Among them, the scent of Howard’s assistant was strong here as well as the scent of the young man who’d been voraciously hammering data into his spreadsheet and a series of other human scents I had detected throughout the building.

There was another smell here too.

It was the thick, musky smell of sex. It was coming from the leather couch to the right of Howard’s desk. I took a few steps closer, realizing that it contained no element of Gail. I paused, breathed it in one more time and determined that the sex smell contained the combined sweat of both Howard and his assistant.

I stood there stunned for a moment. 

On one hand I was disgusted at what this meant for Gail – that Howard had been having an affair with his secretary, but another part of me felt a burst of victory. Would this dalliance of Howard’s mean that Gail would soon be free again and that I would have another chance with her?

As difficult as it was, I tried not to linger on that. I did, after all, have to save Howard’s life first before I could put his plans to marry Gail on the chopping block.

I circled the room a couple of times, drawing in a few different scents I hadn’t first detected. The subtle scent of Gail came from a small, wooden armchair nearest a set of bookshelves to the left. I paused there, leaned down closer to the chair, moved my head in a line parallel to the books on the shelves. Her scent was a bit stronger on the chair and on a few of the books. As if she’d been sitting there, waiting for him to finish work, and browsing.

Directly across from the couch where Howard had fucked his secretary.

My scent survey complete, I sat at Howard’s desk, jostled the mouse a bit and watched the laptop come to life. The standard Windows login screen came up, and I hit ENTER, hoping that Howard hadn’t set up a password.

No such luck.

So I typed “Gail” hoping that would work.

Nada.

I tried “infidelity” next.

Nothing.

Smirking, I typed “Old Spice.”

Still nothing.

Damn. As good as I was at reading people, picking up on subtle clues and being able to manipulate them, I wasn’t able to do the same with computers. I was simply not hacker material.

I drummed my fingers, glancing at the objects on Howard’s desk. There was a pad of papers, a pair of red and blue Paper Mate pens sitting on them, a framed picture of a brown dachshund, a box of facial tissue, three plastic Coke bottle caps with some sort of ten-digit code printed on the inside of each.

Cracking open the top drawer to the right, I plucked out a pencil and then brushed the pens off the notepad. With a hopeful burst of energy, I started rubbing the side of the tip of the pencil across the pad of paper in thick, wide strokes.

Sure enough, by doing so I was able to reveal the faint impression of letters from writing that had been done on the previous sheet of paper from this notepad.

As the words slowly revealed themselves I felt a moment of sheer thrill at my brilliance. But once I was able to read them, I sat back.

Dentist

Thursday. 11:30

Manicure

Thursday. 1:15

I sighed.

Sheer brilliance, indeed

If I kept at it, at this rate I’d be able to uncover all of Howard’s dental hygiene and male grooming secrets by the end of the day. Maybe I’d even be lucky enough to discover his secret for getting rid of those embarrassing white flakes of dandruff.

Pulling on the bottom desk drawer, I found it locked. I steeled myself to give it an extra-hard pull when I caught the subtle scent of something I hadn’t noticed in my initial survey of the room. Something lingering so faintly that it suggested a long period of time since the person who’d left it had been here.

It was the damp, musky smell of the sweaty guy I’d met in that alleyway where Gary had been beaten.

One of those thugs must have been here in Howard’s office.

As I focused on that faint barely lingering scent, I wondered how it could be that the thug had ever been in this office.

And that’s when the subtle and “long ago” scent I was smelling suddenly grew stronger.

Wait a minute. I paused, focusing on the present scents in the air.

The sweaty man’s scent was getting stronger. I was no longer smelling the trace of a person who’d been in this room. I was smelling someone who was currently nearby.

Mr. Hyperhidrosis himself was here. And from the sound of the footfalls outside the door, he was heading my way.